The following is a list of notable text editors.
Graphical and text user interface
The following editors can either be used with a graphical user interface or a text user interface.
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
Elvis | A vi/ex clone with additional commands and features. | ClArtistic |
Extensible Versatile Editor (EVE) | Default under OpenVMS. | ? |
GNU Emacs[1][2][3][4][5]/XEmacs[6][7] | Two long-existing forks of the popular Emacs programmer's editor. Emacs and vi are the dominant text editors on Unix-like operating systems, and have inspired the editor wars. | GPL-3.0-or-later / GPL-2.0-or-later |
Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) | Programmer's Editor for OpenVMS implemented using TPU. | ? |
Textadept | A modular, cross-platform editor written in C and Lua, using Scintilla.[8] | MIT |
vile (vi like Emacs) | A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding new features: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc. | GPL-2.0-only |
vim[9][10][11][12] | A clone based on the ideas of the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface. | Vim |
Graphical user interface
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
Acme | A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike. | MIT |
Alphatk | Proprietary | |
Apache OpenOffice Writer | Word processor and text editor of the Apache OpenOffice Suite, based on StarOffice's suite. | Apache-2.0 |
Arachnophilia | Free software | |
Atom | A modular, general-purpose editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of Chromium and Node.js. | MIT |
BBEdit | Proprietary | |
BBEdit Lite | Freeware | |
Brackets | A modular, web-oriented editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the Chromium Embedded Framework. | MIT |
CodeWright | Proprietary | |
Crimson Editor | Freeware | |
CygnusEd (CED) | Proprietary | |
E Text Editor | Default under IBM OS/2 versions 2-4[citation needed]. | Proprietary |
Eddie | An editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and macOS. | Freeware |
EmEditor | Proprietary | |
Epsilon | Proprietary | |
FeatherPad | A lightweight editor based on Qt. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
Geany | A fast and lightweight editor – IDE, uses GTK+. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
gedit | Former default under GNOME until GNOME 42.[13] | GPL-2.0-or-later |
GNOME Text Editor | Default under GNOME from GNOME 42 onwards[14] | GPL-3.0-or-later |
GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE) | Proprietary | |
HxD | An editor for huge files, working with both binary data and texts. | Freeware |
iA Writer | A multi-platform Markdown text editor with writing focused feature set | Proprietary |
jEdit | A free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
JOVE | Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs | JOVE |
JuffEd | A lightweight text editor written in Qt4. | GPL-2.0-only |
Kate | A basic text editor for the KDE desktop. | LGPL, GPL |
Kedit | An editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT. | Proprietary |
Kile | A user friendly TeX/LaTeX editor. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Komodo Edit | MPL-1.1 | |
KWrite | A default editor on KDE. | LGPL |
Lapis | An experimental text editor allowing multiple simultaneous edits of text in a multiple selection from a few examples provided by the user. | GPL-2.0 |
Leafpad | Default under LXDE.[15] and Xfce[citation needed] | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Leo | A text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation. | MIT |
LibreOffice Writer | Word processor and text editor of the LibreOffice Suite, based on StarOffice's suite. | MPL-2.0 |
Light Table | A text editor and IDE with real-time, inline expression evaluation. Intended mainly for dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and JavaScript, and for web development. | MIT / GPL-3.0-only |
mcedit | A text editor provided with Midnight Commander. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
Metapad | Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
MicroEMACS | JASSPA MicroEMACS | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Mousepad | The default under Xfce.[16] | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Multi-Edit | Proprietary | |
NEdit – "Nirvana Editor" | GPL-2.0-or-later | |
Notepad | Default under Microsoft Windows. | Proprietary |
Notepad++ | A tabbed text editor. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
Pe | A text editor for BeOS. | MIT |
pluma | The default text editor of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
PolyEdit | Proprietary word processor and text editor. | Proprietary |
Programmer's File Editor (PFE) | Freeware | |
PSPad | An editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments. | Freeware |
RJ TextEd | Freeware | |
Sam | MIT | |
SciTE | Cross-platform, multi-user, multi-codepage, multi-language syntax highlighting, area selector, RE find/replace, and very customisable, allowing different font configurations for each syntactic group, user-defined menus and abbreviation expansion. | HPND |
SimpleText | Default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5.[17] | Proprietary |
SlickEdit | Proprietary | |
Smultron | A macOS text editor. | Proprietary |
SubEthaEdit (formerly named Hydra) |
Proprietary | |
Sublime Text | Proprietary | |
TeachText | Default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5.[18] | Proprietary |
TED Notepad | Freeware | |
Tex-Edit Plus | Proprietary | |
TextPad and Wildedit | Proprietary | |
TeXnicCenter | GPL | |
TeXShop | TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer.[19][20][21][22] | GPL-2.0 |
TextEdit | Default under macOS,[23] NeXTSTEP[citation needed], and GNUstep.[citation needed] | BSD-3-Clause |
TextMate | GPL-3.0-or-later | |
TextWrangler | Mac-only editor by Bare Bones Software, sunsetted. Final version released 09/20/2016,[24] replaced by free tier of [BBEdit].[25] | Freeware |
The Hessling Editor | GPL-2.0-or-later | |
The SemWare Editor (TSE) (formerly named QEdit). |
Freeware | |
UltraEdit | Text and source code editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, FTP, etc., handles multi-gigabyte files. | Proprietary |
Ulysses | Proprietary | |
VEDIT | Proprietary | |
Visual Studio Code[26] | An extensible code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running and version control. | MIT |
WinEdt | Proprietary | |
X11 Xedit | MIT | |
XEDIT | Default under VM/CMS. | Proprietary |
Yudit | GPL-2.0-only | |
Xed | GPL-2.0-or-later |
Text user interface
System default
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
E | is the text editor in PC DOS 6, PC DOS 7 and PC DOS 2000. | Proprietary |
ed | The default line editor on Unix since the birth of Unix. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix (not by default on every one). | Free software |
ED | The default editor on CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86. | Free software |
EDIT | The default on MS-DOS 5.0 and higher and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS. Up to including MS-DOS 6.22, it only supported files up to 64 KB. | Proprietary |
EDIT | The text editor in Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Supports large files for as long as swap space is available. Version 7 and higher optionally supports a pseudo-graphics user interface named NewUI. | Proprietary |
EDIX | The text editor in Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent PC DOS, Concurrent DOS 386, FlexOS 286, FlexOS 386, 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT. | Proprietary |
EDITOR | The text editor in DR DOS 3.31 through DR DOS 6.0, and the predecessor of EDIT. | Proprietary |
EDLIN | A command-line based line editor introduced with 86-DOS, and the default on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT. | Proprietary |
ee | Stands for Easy Editor, is part of the base system of FreeBSD, along with vi.[27] | Free software |
nvi | (Installed as vi by default in BSD operating systems and some Linux distributions) – A free replacement for the original vi which maintains compatibility while adding some new features. | BSD-3-Clause |
vi[9][10][28] | The default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems[29] – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex. | BSD-4-Clause or CDDL |
Others
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
ECCE | ECCE (The Edinburgh Compatible Context Editor) is a text editor designed by Dr Hamish Dewar at Edinburgh University. | Free software |
Emacs | A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below. | Free software |
JED | Multi-mode, multi-window editor with drop-down menus, folding, ctags support, undo, UTF-8, key-macros, autosave, etc. Multi-emulation; default is emacs. Programmable in S-Lang. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
JOE | A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico. | Free software |
LE | GPL-3.0-or-later | |
mcedit | Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
mg | Small and light, uses GNU/Emacs keybindings. Installed by default on OpenBSD. | Public domain |
MinEd | Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS. | GPL |
GNU nano | A clone of Pico GPL licensed. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
ne | A minimal, modern replacement for vi. | GPL-3.0-or-later |
Pico | Apache-2.0 | |
SETEDIT | A clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs. | GPL-2.0-or-later |
The SemWare Editor | (TSE for DOS) (formerly called QEdit) |
Proprietary |
vi clones
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
BusyBox vi[30] | A small vi clone with a minimum of commands and features. | GPL-2.0-only |
Elvis | The first vi clone and the default vi in Minix. | ClArtistic |
ex | Or is vi an ex-clone? ex was an extended version of ed. It got a full-screen visual interface, thereby becoming the vi text editor. | Free software |
nvi | A new implementation and currently the standard vi in BSD distributions. | BSD-3-Clause |
Stevie | STEVIE (ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts) for the Atari ST, the starting point for vim and xvi | Public domain |
vile | Derived from an early version of Microemacs in an attempt to bring the Emacs multi-window/multi-buffer editing paradigm to vi users. First published 1991 with infinite undo, UTF-8 compatibility, multi-window/multi-buffer operation, a macro expansion language, syntax highlighting, file read and write hooks, and more. | GPL-2.0-only |
vim[12] | An extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code. | Vim |
Kakoune | A editor inspired by vi that makes use of multi cursor workflows and modal editing.[31] | Unlicense |
No user interface (editor libraries/toolkits)
Name | Description | License |
---|---|---|
Cocoa text system | Supports text components of macOS. | Proprietary |
Scintilla (software) | Used as the core of several text editors. | HPND |
sed (stream editor) | The standard Unix stream editor based on the scripting features in ed. A utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. | Free software |
Text Processing Utility (TPU) | Language and runtime package, developed by DEC, used to implement the Language-Sensitive Editor and Extensible Versatile Editor, Eve. | Proprietary |
ASCII and ANSI art
Editors that are specifically designed for the creation of ASCII and ANSI text art.
- ACiDDraw – designed for editing ASCII text art. Supports ANSI color (ANSI X3.64)
- TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor for DOS and PCBoard file format support
ASCII font editors
- FIGlet – for creating ASCII art text
- TheDraw – DOS ANSI/ASCII text editor with built-in editor and manager of ASCII fonts
Historical
Visual and full-screen editors
- Brief – a programmer's editor for DOS and OS/2
- Edit application – a programmer's editor for Classic Mac OS
- EDIT – a menu-based editor introduced to supersede EDLIN in MS-DOS version 5.0 and up and available in most Microsoft Windows
- EDT – a character-based editor used on DEC PDP-11s and VMS
- O26 – written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series machines in the mid-1960s
- Red – a VMS editor, written in Forth variant STOIC
- se – an early screen-based editor for Unix
- SED – cross-platform editor from the 1980s, ran on TOPS-10, TOPS-20 and VMS
- STET (the 'STructured Editing Tool') – may have been the first folding editor; its first version was written in 1977
- TeachText
- TECO – a character-based editor, which included a programming language.
Line editors
- Colossal Typewriter – an early editor thought to be written for the PDP-1
- ed:
- EDLIN – a line editor delivered with MS-DOS
- EDT (Univac) – a line editor for Unisys VS/9 and Fujitsu BS2000 systems
- ex – an EXtended version of Unix's ed, later evolved into the visual editor vi
- fred – sed-like line editor used on the CDC 7600 at Los Alamos
- GEDIT (aka George 3 EDITor) – a TECO-like editor including a programming language for the GEC 4000 series computers. GEDIT was originally written by David Toll of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and then adopted by GEC Computers for OS4000.
- sed – a non-interactive programmable stream editor available in Unix
- TECO – one of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language
- TEDIT – GEC 4000 series editor based on the Cambridge Titan EDIT
- QED
See also
- Comparison of text editors
- Editor war
- Line editor
- List of HTML editors
- List of word processors
- Outliner, a specialized type of word processor
- Source code editor
Notes
- ^ Cameron, D., Rosenblatt, B., Raymond, E., & Raymond, E. S. (1996). Learning GNU Emacs. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ Glickstein, B. (1997). Writing GNU Emacs Extensions: Editor Customizations and Creations with Lisp. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ Halme, H., & Heinänen, J. (1988). GNU Emacs as a dynamically extensible programming environment. Software: Practice and Experience, 18(10), 999-1009.
- ^ Schoonover, M. A., & Schoonover, S. (1991). GNU Emacs: UNIX text editing and programming. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
- ^ Cameron, D., Elliott, J., Loy, M., Raymond, E. S., & Rosenblatt, B. (2005). Learning GNU Emacs. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ Stallman, R., & Goyal, R. (1994). Getting Started With XEmacs. One of a complete set of manuals for XEmacs, all available at www
.xemacs .org /Documentation /index .%20html. - ^ Ayers, L. (1997). A Comparison of Xemacs and GNU emacs. Linux Journal, 1997, 4.
- ^ "Textadept". Retrieved 2014-08-14.
- ^ a b c Robbins, A., Hannah, E., & Lamb, L. (2008). Learning the vi and Vim Editors. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ a b c Robbins, A. (2011). Vi and Vim Editors Pocket Reference. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ Schulz, K. (2007). Hacking Vim: a cookbook to get the most out of the latest Vim editor. Packt Publishing Ltd.
- ^ a b Neil, D. (2015). Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought. Pragmatic Bookshelf.
- ^ "Apps/Gedit - GNOME Wiki!". projects.gnome.org. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ "GNOME Release Notes". GNOME.org. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- ^ "Leafpad" Archived 2008-10-14 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Apps:mousepad:start [Xfce Docs]".
- ^ http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/0307163ASYS75UPG.pdf [dead link]
- ^ "System 2.0 (4.1/5.5) 800K Disk Contents (9/93)". support.apple.com. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ Mittelbach, F., Goossens, M., Braams, J., Carlisle, D., & Rowley, C. (2004). The LATEX companion. Addison-Wesley Professional.
- ^ Lamport, L. (1994). LATEX: a document preparation system: user's guide and reference manual. Addison-wesley.
- ^ Hoenig, A. (1998). TeX unbound: LaTeX & TeX strategies for fonts, graphics, & more. Oxford University Press, USA.
- ^ Syropoulos, A., Tsolomitis, A., & Sofroniou, N. (2007). Digital typography using LATEX. Springer Science & Business Media.
- ^ "Mac Basics: TextEdit". apple.com. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ Charles Moore (6 March 2017). "So Long Textwrangler, Hello BBEdit". macprices.net. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^ "TextWrangler". barebones.com. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^ Del Sole, A. (2018). Visual Studio Code Distilled: Evolved Code Editing for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Apress.
- ^ "Chapter 3. FreeBSD Basics | FreeBSD Documentation Portal". docs.freebsd.org. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
- ^ a b Lamb, L., Robbins, A., & Robbins, A. (1998). Learning the vi Editor. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
- ^ "vi". pubs.opengroup.org. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ^ Wells, N. (2000). BusyBox: A swiss army knife for linux. Linux Journal, 2000(78es), 10.
- ^ Voinov, Philippe; Rigger, Manuel; Su, Zhendong (2022-12-01). "Forest: Structural Code Editing with Multiple Cursors". Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software. Onward! 2022. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 137–152. arXiv:2210.11124. doi:10.1145/3563835.3567663. ISBN 978-1-4503-9909-8.